Wall Street traders sent stocks up and bond yields slumping as a slowdown in inflation reinforced bets the Federal Reserve will cut rates this year.
Market Snapshot
At 8:45 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 144 points, or 0.36%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 24 points, or 0.46%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 72.25 points, or 0.4%.
Pre-Market Movers
Meme Stocks (GameStop, AMC, Koss, Blackberry, Tupperware and more) - Meme stocks fell in premarket on Wednesday as the meme stock trading frenzy showed signs of fizzling. AMC announced Wednesday that it will issue 23.3 million shares in exchange for $164 million of bonds that mature in 2026, implying the stock is being issued at $7.33.
GameStop and Tupperware fell 12%; AMC fell 10%; Koss fell 20%; Blackberry fell 4%; Virgin Galactic fell 9%; SunPower fell 23%; while Faraday Future soared 110%.
NIO (NIO) - NIO officially launched its sub-brand Onvo (Ledao in China) on May 15. Onvo's first model, the Onvo L60, will take on the Tesla Model Y, targeting the market for smart, all-electric SUVs for families in the 250,000 yuan ($34,600) class, Nio said. US-listed shares of NIO gained 2.3% in premarket trading Wednesday.
JPMorgan analyst Nick Lai upgraded the Chinese electric vehicle maker to neutral from underweight. He also raised his price target on U.S.-listed shares to $5.40 per share from $4.80, though the new forecast calls for a 6% decline over the next year.
Boeing (BA) - Boeing declined 1.81% after the Justice Department said the company violated the terms of a settlement reached three years ago over its employees’ role in two fatal 737 MAX jet crashes that occurred within five months of one another.
Nextracker (NXT) - Nextracker said fiscal fourth-quarter revenue rose 42% to $737 million, better than expectations of $683.2 million, and shares of the solar tracker and software solutions provider were rising 14% in premarket trading. The company said it experienced “robust demand” in U.S. and international markets.
DLocal (DLO) - DLocal was tumbling 30% after first-quarter earnings and revenue missed analysts’ expectations. The online payments company reported first-quarter earnings of 6 cents a share on revenue of $184.4 million, below forecasts for profit of 11 cents and revenue of $189.8 million.
Boot Barn (BOOT) - Boot Barn, the Western-wear retailer, said it expected fiscal 2025 sales of $1.77 billion to $1.8 billion, below analysts’ forecasts of $1.82 billion. The company also said it sees same-store-sales falling around 1.6% to 3.6%, wider than estimates. Shares fell 6.6%.
Dynatrace (DT) - Dynatrace was up 5% after the IT infrastructure software company reported fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings that beat Wall Street estimates and announced a buyback program for up to $500 million of stock but issued a revenue forecast for fiscal 2025 that missed expectations.
Market News
Alphabet Debuts Beefed-up AI Search and Chatbot as Competition Heats up
Google parent Alphabet on Tuesday showed how it is building on artificial intelligence across its businesses, including a beefed-up Gemini chatbot and improvements to its prized search engine as it races to compete with AI rivals.
Among Google’s latest salvos was an addition to its family of Gemini 1.5 AI models known as Flash that is faster and cheaper to run; a prototype called Project Astra, which can talk to users about anything captured on their smartphone camera in real time; and search results categorized under AI-generated headlines.
Alphabet also unveiled a product called Trillium in its artificial intelligence data center chip family that it says is nearly five times as fast as its prior version.
OpenAI Co-Founder Ilya Sutskever Departs ChatGPT Maker
OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is leaving the startup at the center of today's artificial intelligence boom.
"OpenAI would not be what it is without him," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a message to the company, which OpenAI posted on its blog.
Microsoft-backed OpenAI makes the popular ChatGPT chatbot, which sparked a race among the world's largest tech companies for dominance in the emerging generative AI field.